I delight in Prince Craon's exact intelligence! For his satisfaction, I can tell him that numbers, even here, would believe any story full as absurd as that of the King and my Lord Stair; or that very one, if any body will ever write it over. Our faith in politics will match any Neapolitan's in religion. A political missionary will make more converts in a county progress than a Jesuit in the whole empire of China, and will produce more preposterous miracles. Sir Watkin Williams, at the last Welsh races, convinced the whole principality (by reading a letter that affirmed it), that the King was not within two miles of the battle of Dettingen. We are not good at hitting off anti-miracles, the only way of defending one's own religion. I have read -,in admirable story of the Duke of Buckingham, who, when James II. sent a priest to him to persuade him to turn Papist, and was plied by him with miracles, told the doctor, that if miracles were proofs of a religion, the Protestant cause was as well supplied as theirs. We have lately had a very extraordinary one near my estate in the country. A very holy man, as you might be, doctor, was travelling on foot, and was benighted. He came to the cottage of a poor dowager, who had nothing in the house for herself and daughter but a couple of eggs and a slice of bacon. However, as she was a pious widow, she made the good man welcome. In the morning, in taking leave, the saint made her over to God for payment, and prayed that whatever she should do as soon as he was gone she might continue to do all day. This was a very unlimited request, and, unless the saint was a prophet too, might not have been very pleasant retribution. The good woman, who minded her affairs, and was not to be put out of her way, went about her business. She had a piece of coarse cloth to make a couple of shifts for herself and child. She no sooner began to measure it but the yard fell a-measuring, and there was no stopping it. It was sunset before the good woman had time to take breath. She was almost stifled, for she was up to her ears in ten thousand yards of cloth. She could have afforded to have sold Lady Mary Wortley a clean shift' of the usual coarseness she wears, for a groat halfpenny.
I wish you would tell the Princess this story. Madame Riccardi, or the little Countess d'Elbenino, will doat on it. I don't think it will be out of Pandolfini's way, if you tell it to the little Albizzi. You see that I have not forgot the tone of my Florentine acquaintance. I know I should have translated it to them: you remember what admirable work I used to make of such stories in broken Italian. I have heard old Churchill tell Bussy English puns out of jest-books: particularly a reply about eating hare, which he translated, "j'ai mon ventre plein de poil." Adieu!
(853) Youngest daughter of George the Second. She was married in the following October, and died in 1751, at the age of twenty-seven.-E.
(854) The residence of the Prince of Wales. This noble building was burnt to the ground in 1795, and nothing of its furniture preserved but the tapestry that represents the Duke of Marlborough's victories.-E.
343 letter 120 To sir Horace Mann. Houghton, Sept. 17, 1743.
As much as we laughed at Prince Craon's history of the King and Lord Stair, you see it was not absolutely without foundation. I don't just believe that he threatened his master with the parliament. They say he gives for reason of his Quitting, their not having accepted one plan of operation that he has offered. There is a long memorial that he presented to the King, with which I don't doubt but his lordship will oblige the public.(856) He has ordered all his equipages to be sold by public auction in the camp. This is all I can tell you of this event, and this is more than has been written to the ministry here. They talk of great uneasinesses among the English officers, all of which I don't believe. The army is put into commission. Prince Charles has not passed the Rhine, nor we any thing but our time. The papers of to-day tell us of a definitive treaty signed by us and the Queen of Hungary with the King of Sardinia, which I will flatter myself will tend to your defence. I am not in much less trepidation about Tuscany than Richcourt is, though I scarce think my fears reasonable; but while you are concerned, I fear every thing.
My lord does not admire the account of the lanfranc; thanks you, and will let it alone. I am going to town in ten days, not a little tired of the country, and in the utmost impatience for the winter; which I am sure from all political prospects, must be entertaining to one who only intends to see them at the length of the telescope. I was lately diverted with an article in the Abecodario Pittorico, in the article of William Dobson: it says, "Nacque nel quartiere d'Holbrons in Inghilterra."(857) Did the author take Holborn for a city, or Inghilterra for the capital of the island of London? Adieu!
(856) In this memorial Lord Stair complained that his advice had been slighted, hinted at Hanoverian partialities, and asked permission to retire, as he expressed it, to his plough. His resignation was accepted, with marks of the King's displeasure at the language in which it was tendered.-E.
(857) Charles the First used to call Dobson the English Tintoret. He is said to have been the first painter who introduced the practice of obliging persons who sat to him to pay half the price in advance.-E.
344 letter 121 To Sir Horace Mann. Newmarket, Oct. 3, 1743.